This midterm election is not particularly exciting for many according to the latest Gallup poll. Voter enthusiasm is the lowest it has been in 20 years. From Gallup:

Among Republican-leaning voters 42 percent are more enthusiastic about voting than normal, while 50 percent are less enthusiastic. While objective, it is dramatically better than enthusiasm among Democratic-leaning voters, which is what really matters in two-party elections. Only 32 percent of Democratic leaning voters are more enthusiastic while 55 percent are less.

The fact that voter enthusiasm is low shouldn’t be surprising given that 2014 is shaping up to be the least significant election of the century. 2004, 2008, and 2012 were all presidential year elections which people inherently see as important. The 2002 election was in the wake of 9/11. In 2006 Democrats had a real chance of taking back Congress and putting an end to complete Republican control in Washington. Similarly, in 2010 Republicans were able to put a stop to complete Democratic control by taking back the House.

By comparison in this election the most significant possible change would be Republicans winning a narrow majority in the Senate, but that would have only relatively modest policy implications. Republicans are set to hold the House so it was already guaranteed that we would have divided government.

47 Responses
to “Voter Enthusiasm Down Across the Board, But Especially Bad Among Democrats”

Low enthusiasm among Dem voters?! Come on LOTE Dems, this election is yet another opportunity for you all to act on your Obama post-reelection strategy of pushing your party to the left. Since your strategy has accomplished nothing so far, your time is running out. Get pumped!

This feels like the 15th similar article across lefty blogs lately — no offense, Jon.

However, I’m at a loss of whether the Dems are dumb enough to think that choosing almost every policy option opposed by their base is their winning solution OR that their sole goal is simply to keep the status quo of continuing to enable the destruction of almost every progressive program left at the federal level. Either option is really reason enough for that party to lose.

I’m sickened by all the doom and gloom talk among Democrats. So many things can happen between now and November. I don’t think the fact that President Obama has decided to fix the climate has really been factored into the calculations yet and to not do so is a startlingly significant error.
We got a huge assist just yesterday with marco ‘POS’ rubio making a total jackass fool of himself by proclaiming that climate change isn’t real. Once the American people digest the fact that climate change denial is a key characteristic of the extreme right, very few decent citizens will be voting republiturd.
I believe that we need to be optimistic and ignore all the polling. I feel strongly that we will achieve victory and to entertain suggestions that we might lose the Senate is absurd.

What a surprise. When your party’s elected representatives at all levels, plus their paid “officials” pretty much diss their constituents at every possible opportunity, whyever anyone would vote “D” is the real mystery.

Enjoy being shouted at that you’re “f*cking retarded” and need to be drug tested? Then this is your party of choice.

As for me? No thanks. I tore up my D membership card quite a few decades ago thankyewverymuch.

Check out what’s deliberately misleadingly called “third” parties and vote for someone who’s viewpoints and ideas more closely resemble what you think should happen in this country. At least work towards getting other ideas out into the political narrative.

What are the possible propaganda purposes for this poll? That should be the main thrust of this post not what do the numbers mean?
Elizabeth Warren (D) on Sunday stating a R Senate will be disasterous for the 99% working in conjunction with polls like this to gin up fear in the (I) and apathetic (D) voters to vote D. Gallup and Rassmussen in particular mainly poll for propaganda purposes and as you point out nothing will change if D’s beat R’s or R’s beat D’s in DC because they both play for the same team.

Your reality needs some reality. Absurd to hope for Democratic Party to help the 99%. 51 votes with Dick Cheney casting the decider got us the Bush tax cuts but when Democrats were in control of Senate, House and White House we got NOTHING cuz 51 out of 100 is NOT a majority when Democrats owned by the 1% are in charge but it is when the 1% want something.

Yeah, no shit. When the “signature achievement” of the party and their leader is a plan hatched by a right-wing think tank and first implemented by a guy whose election as President we were told would result in the end of civilization its a tad difficult to build enthusiasm for your candidates.

Add to that the fact that Democratic “leadership” has resulted in five years of economic stagnation and continued high unemployment exacerbated by needless austerity while the scumbags who caused the crisis have been rewarded by the Democrats with trillions of dollars in government largesse and are partying on like its 2004 and you have the recipe for an electoral rout.

I’m no longer a Democrat (quit the party six years ago) and I can’t have any influence on this particular election since the Democrat congressman and senators in my area have about as much chance of losing an election as Josef Stalin once did. So, yawn.

But this poll is put out by the 1% to urge you to vote LOTE. Don’t waste you vote on a third party cuz the Republicans will eat your grandchildren and kill your pets. Just stay home instead if you won’t play for the D v. R WWF kabuki show. Polls like these are generated by the Ministry of Truth.

So Democrats are disgusted at the direction of politics these last few years and in particular with Congress. So they seem to be deciding to sit this one out…which of course will only make the problems worse. Wake up folks and VOTE. If you don’t you deserve the screwing being planned for you.

Polls like these help foment apathy or fear and gin up the LOTE vote. We need a lightning rod candidate for a third party to overcome the D v. R meme that Dkos, TPM and the rest of the M$M put out every election cycle. I was hoping Elizabeth Warren would get so disgusted by the D party she would jump ship to the Green Party or start her own. Her appearance on the Sunday talk show claiming death to the 99% if the R’s take the Senate put a pin in that hope balloon for me.

lets see… same “meh” candidates. Heavy on the Boomers. Same “meh” “better than nothing” policies they dredge up every election and then don’t do anything about. The most laughable this cycle is the 10.10 minimum wage. I guess in some areas that’s a big deal but in others it just makes a dent – and it takes years to take effect and often does so in increments. So by the time the 10.10 takes effect, inflation has eaten any real gains.

Really after over a decade about all they can offer is “can you imagine how bad it would be if the Repubs were in power”

I think this bears repeating too – the Dems have no one waiting in the wings. Once the boomers start dying off the party will wither quickly. 2016 is the best example. All they have is Hillary. sad as that is. Only other contenders are the same fossil boomer senators who run and run and run. Biden, Kerry. Maybe they could shake it up and let fossils Fienstein or shumer run. And regardless there will be little difference between what they are saying and what you could have heard in any Walter Mondale stump speech.

Its like my HOA. No one really gives a shit so its the same old people on the board since the 1980s.

That’s what its like in my area. Gerrymandered. Same rep since the early 90s. Was the “black” district but now its all the dem areas lumped together. No one really likes her and we want someone new, but no one will ever run against her. We just have to wait till she dies or retires. So no one is enthused to turn out for someone sure to win that no one really wants.

God if I lived in California, I would be so ready for Feinstein to retire.

Well I’m a Boomer and I left the Democratic Party years ago. Don’t paint an entire generation with the same brush. No one has control over when they were born and not everyone born in a particular cohort fits into the narrow stereotype people like you want to brand them with. Can you honestly say that whatever cohort you were born into is, and will be, any better? There are plenty of non-Boomers supporting the right-wing and the current Vichy Democratic Party. Wasn’t it the millennials that inflicted Obummer on us?

I checked, and Warren does appear to be comfortably within the top 1%.

I’m not exactly delighted about that, nor about the fact she’s a retread Republican, nor that she’s evidently quite a warmonger.

Still, I’ve no evidence she’s an actual criminal or corporate psychopath like we saw in 2012. So I’d reluctantly support her for President on account of there being no other Democrats of any stature who are worth a pewter **** — that I know of.

What, if anything, do left leaning voters have to be enthusiastic about?

Say what you will about republicans, but they do at least go through the motions of giving their base what they want. All those repeal ACA votes and new abortion restrictions at the state level are straight out of the republican platform.

What do democrats get? Obama appoints a corporate lobbyist to the FCC and net neutrality goes down the drain. Who the hell voted democratic to get that? Anybody?

Certainly things can change between now and November. Unfortunately most of the most likely things I can come up with will actually depress the Democratic base and enthuse the Republican base more.

Look, I refuse to vote LOTE anymore. The past six years have made me an extremely unhappy formerly reliable Democratic voter. I see no reason to vote for people who REFUSE to represent my interests regardless of their supposed party affiliation. But I’m an old middle ager or young senior. Tell me anything that is going to enthuse young or younger middle age Democratic voters from our national Democrats. And the first person who says ACA needs to be beaten about the head with a clue stick.

The only thing that will save Democrats is going to be local and state issues.

Congratulations, Democrats most particularly Obama, you have secured your retirement after elected office but essentially thrown the party into the crapper by being Republicans. Hell of a plan there. Perhaps you should have looked up and recognized that having both Houses of Congress AND the White House was a real opportunity to do things to help the Working Class of America, rather then continue to protect the financial industry, the insurance industry and the MIC at the expense of those same Americans, you know the ones that are supposedly your base.

If the state Democratic Committee is set up the same way as it is here, that no one will run is really no one can run. They have rigged the process so much it is nearly impossible for an outside candidate to primary an incumbent without the approval of the Democratic regulars. There might very well be a few people interested but the hoops are too high.

LOTE is a joke on those of us interested in real progressive policies. The D’s have been crapping on my ideals for decades. They have moved to the right with dizzying speed and this boomer finally walked (green) last presidential cycle. I know they know that the real left is lost to them electorally. I also realize they don’t care.

my enthusiasm has gone up.. for not voting. I’m really looking forward to 2016 when I can not vote for a new crop of Democrats, oo and Hilary. Voting only matters in a democracy, but not voting matters no matter what system you live under.

Forget “get out the vote”, Get out the popcorn. Its almost time for the ‘bots to squeal and plea for us to participate in this dog and pony kabuki yet again. Think of the children. what about teh gays. support our unions or unicorns or someshit. yadda yadda yadda.

If the “majority” are hellbent on bringing on the rapture, I say we might as well mock the PTB while we are still capable of independent thought.

I believe that we need to be optimistic and ignore all the polling. I feel strongly that we will achieve victory and to entertain suggestions that we might lose the Senate is absurd.

What is this optimism you speak of? Oh, the one where you ignore polling, which I guess is what people want, in favor of the fantasy land you make up in your head. That’s all that is needed to be victorious in not losing the Senate. Well sir, I think I can do that. I think I can dream up some scenario where we, I guess that means all people (or is that the *right* sort of people) keep the Senate. I can definitely ignore polling. 8 years of Obama has taught me a complete lack of interest in what is best for the little people is not only proper but an essential coping technique.

This is one election in which WE NEED TO VOTE FOR THE LESSER OF TWO EVILS!!!

Obama needed to be voted OUT in 2010, but the Democrats need to be voted back into Congress in 2014. Here’s why.

OBAMA WANTS THE DEMOCRATS to lose the Congress in 2012. Mind you–it was Harry Reid who refused to bring TPP fast track onto the floor, stopping TPP in its track. Did you know that?? (I read Reid also opposed Nafta in the 1990s.) Take away Harry Reid, and TPP passes!! I thought that was obvious.

If the Democrats lose the Senate: Obama, in conspiracy with the Republicans, will be able to push through to Obama’s heart’s desire his unfinished business:

1. Cuts to/privatization of social security, Medicare
2. TPP
etc.

It will be DISASTROUS if the Dems lost Congress in 2014. Although not all of them are perfect, as a group, it is the Congressional Democrats who now stand between Obama/the Republicans and us. TPP, anyone?

No one told Congressional Democrats they had to follow Obama off a cliff. You’ll have to forgive me if I don’t feel sorry for a party that cut food stamps and helped restore a military budget presequestration. Remind me again about how “different” they are from the GOP?